Federal authorities said they seized bank accounts containing Allentown Mayor Ed Pawlowski's campaign money using a civil forfeiture law that allows them to take property when it can be traced to a crime, according to a filing in the criminal case against Pawlowski's campaign manager.

Prosecutors filed a response Monday to a motion by Pawlowski's lawyer asking a judge to release the two bank accounts. The mayor's lawyer claimed the accounts were improperly frozen when Pawlowski's friend and campaign manager Mike Fleck was charged and pleaded guilty in April to conspiracy to commit extortion and tax evasion.

In their filing this week, prosecutors said Pawlowski's accounts were not frozen in connection with the charges against Fleck. They were seized after authorities obtained a warrant under the federal civil forfeiture law that was signed by U.S. District Judge Legrome Davis a week before Fleck was charged.

"The case against Michael Fleck was not initiated until an information was returned on April 21, 2016, and had nothing to do with the seizure of the bank accounts referenced above," the filing says.

Pawlowski, who has not been charged with a crime, also claimed he did not receive notice or an opportunity to contest the seizure. Prosecutors say the FBI sent notice of the forfeiture to Pawlowski's lawyer, yet Pawlowski failed to act by the June 9 deadline.

A look at the political career of Allentown Mayor Ed Pawlowski. Pawlowski has been charged in federal court in a pay-to-play scheme, his lawyer said.

A look at the political career of Allentown Mayor Ed Pawlowski. Pawlowski has been charged in federal court in a pay-to-play scheme, his lawyer said.

"He now is simply attempting to shoehorn his belated motion into an unrelated criminal case before this court," the filing says.

Fleck admitted participating in a scheme to raise contributions for Pawlowski and others from multiple campaign donors in exchange for contracts or other favorable treatment from officials in Allentown and Reading.

He implicated Pawlowski and former Reading Mayor Vaughn Spencer, court records show. The FBI has been investigating alleged pay-to-play practices in both cities. Sources have told The Morning Call that Fleck secretly recorded Pawlowski, Spencer and others for the FBI.

Like Pawlowski, Spencer has not been charged. Although neither mayor is named in charges against Fleck and others who have pleaded guilty in the pay-to-play investigations, descriptions of two elected officials in the charges match only Pawlowski and Spencer.

Pawlowski lawyer Jack McMahon said Wednesday he was aware of the government's filing. McMahon said he chose to file the motion seeking the release of the bank accounts as part of Fleck's case because Pawlowski has not been charged with a crime.

No hearing has been scheduled on Pawlowski's motion. Clerks for U.S. District Judge Juan R. Sanchez, who presides over Fleck's case, and Davis, who signed the seizure warrant, provided no information in response to inquiries about the seizure.

McMahon said in July that Pawlowski discovered his accounts had been seized when a check for a campaign expense bounced. He did not specify what the expense covered. The motion does not say how much money is in the accounts, though campaign finance records suggest there may be about $177,000 combined.

According to the document charging Fleck, he was notified that the government may seize $50,750 contained in two bank accounts at Provident Bank and one at National Penn Bank.

Prosecutors said in their filing Monday that if the government decides to pursue seizure of the money in Fleck's case, a judge would have to determine whether it is linked to a crime and issue an order directing Fleck to give it up when he is sentenced. None of that has happened